“The book is full of memorable details and names... . For those of us
who got hooked on the
software thing at an impressionable age, this is exciting stuff. And Theresa
is a fine writer. The story moves along briskly ...there's an innocence
and earnestness and honesty in the book that makes you willing to let them
tell their story in their way. ”
Michael Swaine, Swaine's Flames, Dr. Dobbs Journal, August 2007Read Swaine's column

“As one of the co-creators, I know the history of the
TRS-80. This is the most accurate history of this 'Industry Creating Machine'
out there. ” Don French, who, with Steve Leininger, designed the TRS-80
(review at amazon.com)

“Theresa, the book came and it's great! I learned things about the TRS80 that I had never guessed...”
Bruce Damer, DigiBarn Computer Museum

“I LIKE it! I think many others will, too. Thank you for preserving so
much information on this watershed product in so many lives. ”
Dick and Jill Miller, Miller Microcomputer Services

“ ...I am thoroughly enjoying it! The book fills in so
many of the gaps of the history of the machine for me. I lived it but did not
know all the things going on at the time. ” Scott Adams, creator of the Adventure games

The personal stories of David and Theresa Welsh, whose software
products were sold worldwide

The games, the magazines, the scams, and even the robots that were
supposed to be in every home by the year 2000

355 pages including an Index

Photos and illustrations of early ads and products

121 illustrations!

The True Story of Microcomputer Pioneers

Radio Shack's TRS-80 Launched a Revolution in 1977

Priming the Pump: How TRS-80 Enthusiasts Helped Spark the PC Revolution
reveals the hidden history of personal computing.

The authors witnessed the birth of the computer revolution as part of the community
of small software entrepreneurs who created the first applications for personal
computers. They personally knew many of the principle players
whose accomplishments are the stuff of legends. This book is the ONLY BOOK to
capture this unique era, the late 1970s and early 1980s, when personal computing
was just an idea -- an idea whose time had come!

In these pages you will learn how a young engineer named Steve Leininger, working alone,
built the first TRS-80. Development costs were less than $150,000. Leininger had to make
a product that could be sold for a price Radio Shack customers could afford. Yet no one had
ever sold a complete off-the-shelf personal computer before.

The TRS-80 was not the first microcomputer. First were the homebuilt models
and the kits, starting with the Altair in 1975. You couldn't buy an Altair in a store;
it was only available through mail order, and when your kit arrived,
you had to put it together yourself. There was no software, so you programmed it yourself
by toggling switches on the front panel.

“ ...the most accurate history of this "Industry Creating Machine" out there. ”

Don French, co-creator of the TRS-80

Other kit computers followed, but
none were taken seriously. That changed because of one fateful day when
a computer hobbyist at Tandy Corporation (parent of Radio Shack), Don French,
suggested to his bosses that they should build and sell a real computer.
The Tandy managers weren't sure about this idea, but they decided to
investigate and paid a visit to Silicon Valley. There they met and
made an offer to Steve Leininger, who siezed an
opportunity to do hands-on work with something he loved: the new microchips
that hobbyists were using to build their own computers.

Carried along by his
own enthusiasm for the project,
Leininger had few people to assist him; he was doing something
no one had ever done before. The result of his
efforts was the revolutionary TRS-80 Model I,
a product so successful it overwhelmingly exceeded even its most
optimistic sales predictions.

PRESENTING ... TRS-80!
The first off-the-shelf microcomputer.

This is the Model I, as introduced
on August 3, 1977 in New York City for a price of $599.95
The tape player was the storage device. There
was no hard drive and only 4K of memory. You programmed it with
a tiny BASIC built into the machine or with Z80 assembly language.

The Real Story, From the People Who Lived It

Individual programmers, not giant corporations, created the
software business. Before Microsoft was a household word, most
business programs and games were created by one
person, not, as in later years, by teams of Computer Science graduates.
One person, eagerly soaking up information from programming manuals and magazine articles,
was capable of creating software... using a computer with a mere
16K of memory and no hard drive. Responding to the lack of software,
microcomputer programmers found they could start
selling their creations to buyers clamoring for applications.

Of course, software already existed. It ran on the expensive
IBM mainframes used by Big Business. Left out of this scenario were small businesses,
which could not afford computers, and individuals, who had no chance to use or program a computer.
But in the late 1970s a revolution began. The personal
computer revolution. Those first machines, meant for individuals, were called microcomputers.

Introduction of the TRS-80 meant, for the first time, anyone could experiment with software and
affordably use word processing, spreadsheets, accounting, database and other kinds of software...
as soon as someone wrote programs
to perform those functions and made them available. And lots of individuals working
in basements and garages did create those programs. Most of them had never done any programming before.
By the early 1980s, customers could choose from over
30 word processors.

David Welsh, shown above with the TRS-80 Model III, was one of those self-taught programmers. His word processor,
Lazy Writer, was sold worldwide and had many enthusiastic fans who were eager to
throw away their typewriters.

Steve Leininger, hired away from Silicon
Valley by Tandy Corp., worked alone amid the grimy surroundings of
an old Fort Worth saddle factory and built the prototype TRS-80;
the final development cost was less than $150,000.

John Roach, Tandy's product manager, got an agreement
from Charles Tandy to build 3500 units after Leininger
demonstrated the prototype; this was exactly the number of stores
they had -- Roach figured if no one bought the computers, at least the stores
could use them. Don French, a true believer, predicted they'd
sell 50,000 the first year and urged the company to gear up the
factory for mass production. Tandy managers, thinking they could
never sell that many, were surprised when, in the weeks after the introduction,
the Tandy switchboard was paralyzed with over 15,000 calls from
people wanting to order a TRS-80. In the first year, over 250,000
people went on waiting lists to buy a TRS-80!

Tandy contracted with Randy Cook to create a
Disk Operating System (TRSDOS) for its next generation TRS-80,
which would come with floppy disk drives.
The company agreed Cook would retain ownership
of the code. But Cook, believing Tandy violated the agreement,
created a rival DOS which he sold through his own company.
Clueless Tandy managers found Cooks'
name embedded in the TRSDOS code.

TRSDOS replacements appeared - five of them - and programmers
made up their own homespun magazine ads touting their products great features and
attacking their rivals' products in the pages of magazines like 80 Micro,
the most popular of many publications devoted to the TRS-80.

Wayne Green, publisher of popular computer magazines, promised
to "editorially break" Radio Shack because they would not carry his
80 Micro magazine in their stores; his vitriolic column often
lambasted Radio Shack CEO John Roach.

Bill Schroeder, a successful businessman, bankrolled Logical
Systems, Inc. and sold Tandy on LDOS as the company-sponsored
TRSDOS replacement. A state-of-the-art headquarters and a pile of
money followed the lucrative contract, but once he sensed the coming
demise of the TRS-80, Schroeder simply shut down his
company, a move he came to regret.

Scott Adams created popular Adventure games for the TRS-80
and other early microcomputers, became a celebrity
in the magazines, but went broke when he produced too many game
cartridges for a computer that died in the marketplace.

Along with microcomputers, robots were hot.
Meet the robots of the 1980s - and the man who said we were all
going to have mechanical men in our homes by the year 2000. A magazine
boldly declared it "The Robotics Age," but this revolution never achieved its promise.

A notorious scam artist preyed on the gullibility of microcomputer
enthusiasts, destroying the Southern California Computer Society
with a Ponzi scheme, then bilking TRS-80 owners out of thousands
of dollars with magazine ads from a bogus company called
World Power Systems showing phony products.

Here is
the real story of personal computing, based on
interviews with pioneers who created the hardware and software that
spawned a revolution. They tell their story
for the first time, captured by the authors, who lived through it all.
Despite the persistent claim that Apple or IBM invented personal computing,
it's just not so. This book tells the story that has not been told before, and
your tour guides are David and Theresa Welsh,
whose insights are a valuable resource to understanding the
technological and cultural revolution represented by personal computing.

DON'T BUY A PIRATE COPY!

We've seen our book for sale from unauthorized sellers. The ONLY authorized sources are shown below, for a print book or an ebook (there is no authorized PDF version). ALL OTHER SOURCES ARE BOGUS!!!

Also available on Google Play for other eReaders or devices using the ePub format

The eBook version includes color illustrations (although many of the 122 illustrations are black and white because that is their original color). Don't have an eReader? You can read Priming the Pump (with color) by downloading a free copy of Kindle for PC from amazon.com or go to www.barnesandnoble.com and download the free Nook for PC app or download Adobe Digital Editions, a free reader from adobe.com. Or read it on your iPad or any device that uses the Kindle or epub format.

NEW and Absolutely Free! Illustrated Slide Show (40 colorful slides) on the TRS-80 era, incorporating material from Priming the Pump. Show it at your next meeting; enjoy it on your PC or iPad.